Pennsylvania Secretary of State Leigh Chapman made the announcement Wednesday, noting that the margin between the two candidates was just 902 votes after all Pennsylvania counties reported their unofficial results on Tuesday. state, within the automatic counting threshold of 0.5%. Chapman reported that Oz, which had the backing of former President Donald Trump, had 419,365 votes and McCormick had 418,463 votes. Currently, the status results page does not match these totals.
McCormick, as the second-most-voted, may have chosen to waive his right to a count, but decided not to. Counties can start the count as early as Friday, but they must start no later than June 1. Counties must complete the count before noon on June 7 and submit their results before noon on June 8.
The Republican primary winner will face Democratic Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman in one of the major Senate races in this year’s midterm elections. Republicans are considering retaining the seat of Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, who is stepping down as key to his hopes of capturing a Senate majority, while Democrats see seats reversed in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, both US-occupied states. now President Joe Biden in 2020, they are the best. way to protect yourself from losses elsewhere.
This is the seventh time an automatic count has been activated in Pennsylvania since 2004, when the provision was added. There have only been three counts, however, since the other three were dropped. The three counts that have taken place did not change the election results.
As of Wednesday afternoon, 65 of the 67 counties in Pennsylvania had reported a series of undated or incorrectly dated ballots. Chapman said there are 860 Republican ballots that are undated or incorrectly dated. There are pending lawsuits in the state to determine if these ballots should be added to the total count. The State Department has advised counties to separate these ballots and count them separately as cases progress through the judicial system.
“Our position is that undated and incorrectly dated ballots should count,” Chapman said. “To be clear, our guidance will allow counties to arrive at an accurate count regardless of what the courts decide.”
In the counting process, county election boards must count the ballots using a device other than the one used in the initial tabulation or the ballots can be counted by hand.
A controversial primary
Oz’s campaign was bolstered by a endorsement by Trump, who campaigned for him days before the primaries. But the wave of votes from Trump supporters could have been moderated by the rise of conservative activist Kathy Barnette, who finished in a strong third place with about 25% of the vote after a campaign built in large measure around the causes and grievances of the former president. He faced attacks for his revocation of abortion rights, which he once said he supported and now says he opposes, and his Turkish citizenship and service to the Turkish army.
“This is an area where I think Mehmet is absolutely committed, because while Ronald Reagan served in the U.S. Army, Mehmet was in the Turkish military,” McCormick said in a debate. (Oz has said that he retained his Turkish citizenship to care for his sick mother, who lives there, and that he served in the Turkish army to maintain that citizenship.)
McCormick largely followed the bill put forward by Glenn Youngkin, another former Republican chief financial officer who won the governor’s office in Virginia last year. McCormick’s campaign hired the same company that advised Youngkin.
McCormick was the recipient of more than $ 16 million in advertising spending on a super PAC called Honor Pennsylvania, funded by Wall Street figures. His campaign and the Oz campaign also spent more than $ 12 million on television commercials.
McCormick’s Republican rivals, meanwhile, tried to tie him to China, using the investments of his former Blackwater hedge fund there to beat him.
Fetterman already anticipated a line of attack aimed at whoever won the Republican primary, and said Oz and McCormick – who recently moved to Pennsylvania – “two Republicans with carpets.” McCormick was born and raised in Pennsylvania, and the U.S. Constitution only requires senators to live in the state they represent when elected.
Pennsylvania is also hosting a crucial race for governor this fall facing Republican State Sen. Doug Mastriano, who has accepted Trump’s lies about the 2020 presidential election, and Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who has defended the election procedures. state, with the winner winning. the power to appoint the secretary of state who will take control of the Pennsylvania electoral machinery in time for the 2024 presidential contest.
This story has been updated with additional information.